Many companies and other organizations operate computer networks that interconnect numerous computing systems to support their operations and the services they provide to their end customers distributed worldwide. For example, data centers housing significant numbers of interconnected computing systems have become commonplace, such as private data centers that are operated by and on behalf of a single organization, and public data centers that are operated by entities as businesses to provide computing resources to customers.
Racks in a data center sometimes need to be moved from one place to another within a computing room. A rack having a full complement of servers, power supply components, network components, or other systems may be quite heavy. Often, racks are mounted on casters to facilitate moving the rack on the floor of the computing room. Because many racks may be held in close proximity to one another, however, service personnel may encounter hazards when working with the rack being moved. For example, a person's hand may be smashed or pinched between the rack being extracted from a row of racks and an adjacent rack. In addition, some techniques for moving racks involve applying loads to various parts of the structure of a rack in a manner that can deform the rack structure. For example, in an open frame rack, pulling the rack by a single vertical corner post may bend the corner post.
While embodiments are described herein by way of example for several embodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the art will recognize that embodiments are not limited to the embodiments or drawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit embodiments to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.